


Terms and Conditions

by thursdaysisters



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-09
Updated: 2014-01-09
Packaged: 2018-01-08 02:24:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1127247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thursdaysisters/pseuds/thursdaysisters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock vs. the Officer from Kafka's "In the Penal Colony".  The Officer has turned London into a police state, and Sherlock hacks his way into the CCTV network to stop him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Terms and Conditions

Holmes read everything. Maps, spreadsheets, Supreme Court dissents, reports on Samoan ecosystems, the 800 number on his shampoo bottle to see if it had changed since the last time he'd gotten up to pee. It hadn't. 

He scrolled down another page and stopped.

_"...if you fail, or the City of London suspects that you have failed, to comply with any of the provisions of this Agreement, the City, at its sole discretion, without notice to you may: (i) terminate this Agreement, and you will remain liable for all amounts due under your Account up to and including the date of termination; and/or (ii) terminate your state license; and/or (iii) preclude access to the City and it's services (or any part thereof)."_

He hit 'print' and looked up from the monitor. The warehouse was a man-cave: a kitchenette piled high with dirty dishes, a few sofas lifted from the OxFam loading dock, and five thousand square feet of industrial toys. Most of the paid members just used it for storage, but a few diehards had nowhere else to go when their girlfriends were out of town.

An engineer in bicycle shorts pointed to the next slide in his presentation, citing the many uses of drywall screws to an audience of ten. Holmes leaned down and unplugged the projector. Bike Shorts looked around, thinking the power had gone out. “What’s up Niner?” he asked.

"Have you seen this?" said Holmes, waving the document over his head.

Watson took it to read, and scanned the cover page entitled 'Terms and Conditions'. "Huh, I didn't know the city had free wireless access."

"They started offering it after the election."

"Yeah, so?"

Holmes walked to the coffee maker. "Skip to page forty-two."

Their heads knocked together to read it. "Holy crap," said Watson, re-reading to be sure. 

Holmes sloshed moldy coffee in the carafe, then dumped it down the sink. "With the jails shut down, the city's been bulking up electronic surveillance to prevent crime, specifically crimes of intent," he said, sitting and planting his shoes against the table, “and because of page 42 sub-section B, everyone who’s signed up for public internet submits to a zero tolerance policy.”

"Arrested before they get a chance to break the law?"

He looked away. "Something like that."

"Can they get away with this?"

"Only if they catch us. Which brings me," he said, cracking his knuckles over the keyboard, "to my next trick."

Watson grabbed his wrist, looked around, and dropped his voice. "What are you doing?"

“Nothing to worry your pretty head about,” he said, smiling and replacing his friend’s hand, “Now go clean the coffee maker, would you?”  
________________________________________

Everyone in the coffee line was talking about the new mayor, or The Officer, depending on which morning news show you watched. After taking office, his press secretary declared that all of the municipal jails were to be repurposed, either as hospitals, libraries, or, hoping to cash in on poverty porn tourists, hotels. What the city intended on doing with all the prisoners had yet to be announced.

"Look at that one," said Cindy, admiring a tattooed inmate being interviewed. "You think he's single?"

Sheila rolled her eyes. "You're gonna date a murderer?"

"Come on, everyone's gotta stick their hand in the blender once, right?"

They moved up the line, giving the homeless woman behind them a little space as she laughed at something over her new mobile phone.

"Dang, everyone's got one now," said Sheila. "I paid three hundred quid for mine and she gets it for free?"

"When was the last time you saw a pay phone?" Cindy pointed out. "Besides, you have a heart attack on the side of the road, you have to call somebody, right?"

"I guess..." Sheila conceded, eyeing the booth outside the shop window, where more homeless signed a clipboard in exchange for free phones. Further down the street, a separate line formed, though these people appeared to be more affluent and... worried.

"The Internet's been crazy good for some reason," said Cindy, "Normally it's crap in my building; I can't even get texts half the time, but after I signed up this morning my mum video-called from Dublin, no lag or anything. Craziness."

"City must've made some repairs," Sheila replied absently, as the man in front of her paid and left. "Oooh, he dropped something."

Everyone in line looked down. A pound note meant for the tip jar had slid from the counter onto the floor, and Sheila eyed it hungrily. If it had been a twenty she might have spoken up, but a single was like stealing napkins or toilet paper, something no one ran out of. Waiting for the cashier to turn his back, she bent to take it.

A light winked in the security camera, and Sheila felt a hand on her arm. She looked up at her own fishbowl reflection in a mirrored visor, the security guard plated in black riot armor. "Come with me, ma'am."

"What's going on?" asked Cindy, as more guards appeared and everyone in the shop was escorted outside. Main Street was filled with shoppers now, all facing the same direction. "Is there a bomb threat? Are we being evacuated?"

They were separated and made to wait their turn, fenced in by police on all sides. Later, when her name was called, Sheila found herself in an old gymnasium long since condemned after the storms in '07, and followed a guard past a row of doors with no knobs and paper stuffed into the windows. A man in scrubs hurried past with two garbage sacks, and she covered her face from the smell.

One door was ajar, and an old woman tapped a piece of paper. "I don't have a driver's license," she said.

The nurse across from her sighed. "You have a library card?"

"I was robbed last week; I don't have any papers!"

The guard leaned across Sheila to shut the door, then proceeded to the end of the hall to a door marked "DIVING WELL". She turned to thank him, but her face glared in his polished visor, and she looked away.

A nurse, or possibly librarian, sat behind a metal desk with a computer and something like a blood pressure monitor cuff. She removed a pair of latex gloves and gestured to the chair across from her, reading from the computer screen before Sheila had sat all the way down.

"Sheila Maude Capetown of 33 Broadleaf Place?" she asked, her voice echoing in that vast, tiled room. A few feet behind sat another nurse, her name tag reading MONITOR in all caps, knitting a hat beside the fire exit.

Sheila nodded, and pulled the ID from her purse. Confirming her name, the nurse set a few necessaries before her, antiseptic swab, syringe, bandages, flipping them face up like playing cards. "Please place your right hand on the table."

Sheila looked around, but Cindy had been in another line. She could be anywhere. Her eyes strayed to the empty diving well, where some detectives had dumped a pail of red paint and left sneaker tracks up one side. "Am I being fingerprinted?" she asked, putting her hand on the table for disinfection. "Is this about a speeding ticket?"

The nurse unbuttoned Sheila's right sleeve and slipped her arm through the blood pressure cuff. It tightened until her hand began to throb. A wide window to her left had been replaced with a sheet of plywood, and down the hall someone screamed and screamed, but it didn't sound like anyone Sheila knew.

She snapped back to attention as the nurse placed a small, covered box on the table. "By the City of London, you have been charged with intent of unlawful caption and asportation of personal property. This is your first warning," she said, snapping on a fresh pair of latex gloves. "You'll feel a pinch."

A syringe of lydocaine numbed Sheila's hand. The nurse removed the cover, the machine underneath like some combination of a breadbox and a pencil sharpener, and when she flipped a switch with her foot, the round opening in its side whirred to life, sucking in air like a jet engine. The smell of burnt meat filled the room.

Sheila tried to think back something she'd stolen, ever, in her life. It couldn't have just been about the money in the cafe, she hadn't even touched it...

_"Come on, everyone's gotta stick their hand in the blender once, right?"_

"But you didn't see me doing anything!" she cried, as the cuff tightened and bound her wrist in place.

The monitor looked up for the first time, and Sheila noticed she was only knitting with nine fingers. "You would have done something eventually. Now it's up to everyone to guard themselves. Let this be a reminder," she said, as Sheila's index finger was led into the hole. "You are always on trial."  
________________________________________

Holmes strayed back to the computer. "I have a theory, Watson, I just want to peek into the CCTV database for a minute."

Watson grabbed the keyboard. "Oh no, if you...even if you could..." he said, “Dude, they can trace it back to your computer! Five minutes and they'll be here again with baseball bats and a black sack for our heads!"

Holmes snorted, and pulled up an application on his phone. "You think I'd hack the British government," he said, pressing SEND, "from my own machine?"

Watson was silent a moment, holding the tablet high over his head like Moses in a sweater vest. "You're not?"

"No," he said, as the fan whirred in a computer further down the hall, "I'm using yours."  
________________________________________

The Officer was tall and straight, with movie-star cheekbones, and a nose that ended in a point. Despite having over fifty people under his employ, he had the top floor to himself and saw no one during regular hours. He preferred working over the phone.

A capsule sucked upwards in the pneumatic tube, and he unfolded the paper within. WE HAVE AN EMERGENCY STOP

He lifted the receiver from its cradle, and dialed his chief engineer. "You couldn’t have called?"

"Sir, have you seen the latest video feed?" 

He punched his keyboard and got an error message. "The cameras out front are down?" he asked, noting the blank squares in the corner of his laptop screen. "What's wrong with the network?"

"We've been hacked."

The Officer looked out his 'window'. The device had was a recent gift from NASA, a four-by-four-foot display screen with a direct link to ISS feeds. He held out his hand, and blocked England from view. "How?"

"They must have used pattern-matching software to break our codes, with an additional signature on top which, when distributed to the .uk registrar, resulted in a complete cessation of service."

"So all the cameras are out?"

"It's worse than that, sir," he said, as the window lost it's signal, and the Officer was left with his own thin reflection. "Someone's black-holed Great Britain."  
________________________________________

Whenever his stash ran low, Holmes resorted to distilling tobacco in the coffee maker, running the brown water over and over through the filter until it attained the consistency of pine tar. He rubbed a fingerful over his gums, and neurons pinged in his brain like frying fat. 

"That stuff’ll burn a hole in your brain."

"Not now John," he said, flexing his fingers. "I need to be very, very clever for the next fifteen minutes. Once all the pieces are in place, the plan will run on its own momentum."

And sitting at his computer, he began a series of keystrokes too quick for Watson to follow, saving and printing a document which he then signed, scanned, and forwarded to a laundry list of corporate email recipients. He did not release his finger from the final carriage return when a megaphone broke the silence.

"Alright you lot!" shouted the SWAT team leader. "Come out with your hands up!"

"Johnny," said Holmes, not looking up, "there's a passage to the neighboring warehouse through the refrigerator. I suggest you hurry."

"How do you know they won't-?"

"Would you eat anything in that kitchen?"

The shadow of two figures with a battering ram passed the frosted window, the door cracking down the middle at the first blow, and Watson turned on his heel to run. Months of take-out cartons blocked the way, but eventually he hooked two fingers into a recessed latch in the very back of the fridge, and screamed as the floor gave way beneath his feet. After a moment, the linoleum slid back into place, and Holmes dropped to his knees, hands on his head, as the front door flew apart. 

Outside, he could already feel the high wearing off, two men on either side of him, and a third leading him by the neck with creaky gloved fingers. His eyes flicked to one side to see if he'd attracted an audience, and found his neighbor standing at the crossing. Usually a neat man, the professor had let his coat slip off one shoulder, and a bird pecked at the slowly growing pool of blood beneath his right hand. The signal changed, and still he was unable to decide whether or not to cross the street. Paralyzed. 

Siren lights danced across Holmes's face, but before he could inquire about the old man, a jacket was pulled over his head, and he was pushed into the waiting police van.

Days passed. He was on his eighth escape attempt (setting the mattress on fire) when the doors parted on different guards, who didn’t know better and allowed him use of the hallway phone.

“John?”

“Sherlock, where the hell are you?!”

“All’s well, did you get that vibrating buttplug I sent you?”

“You’ve been reading my dream diary…”

“I left it by the emergency exit,” he said, listening to Watson rummage in the refrigerator, “Have you turned it on?”

A ringtone jingled. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“I like to paint eyes on mine...” he began, when the phone cut off and he was walked into a service elevator, the guards standing back a pace to keep him in their crosshairs. You could have fit a grand piano in there, and he knelt on the wet metal floor, clean but for an S of bloody hair stuck to the wall. The elevator rushed upward, light as a soap bubble, and the doors chimed open. 

"Leave us, but don't go far."

A chair was found for Holmes, and the blindfold came away. He blew the hair out of his eyes and studied the shadow seated across the room. "Mister Mayor."

The Officer opened his hand, and the guard walked out, closing the door with a soft click but not taking his hand from the knob. The Officer did a quarter turn in his chair. "Here," he said, pushing a silver case across to Holmes, "for lack of bread and salt."

Holmes smiled and took a cigarette, smoke curling up one side of his face as he surveyed the office. A heavy desk, a pull-string lamp on top of a map, a computer screen bolted to the wall and angled away so that it reflected the back of the Officer's head and no one else.

"How's business?" asked Holmes, his voice flat.

The Officer leaned forward. "Slow."

Holmes shifted the cigarette to the corner of his mouth as the Officer rested his hand beside the lamp, the light cutting him off at the wrist. He wore a gauntlet, leather the color of putty with a hard shell across the back. Holmes closed his eyes on a long pull, then blew thin streams of smoke through his nose. "Nice stuff you’ve got there."

"Been a long time since your last dose. I'm surprised you didn't come in here on all fours."

Holmes swallowed, one ankle twisted around a chair leg. He tried to keep his words light. "I hate partying alone."

“The other hackers call you Niner.”

“It’s a dumb kid story.”

“Age hasn’t improved you there.”

“Touche,” said Holmes, grinning, “A hit cost ten quid when I was a kid. But the dealer had a soft spot for me, hated seeing me begging for change outside the pub.”

“So he gave it to you cheap?”

“Yeah. I’d be running down the street yelling, ‘I got nine, I got nine!’, even into college after the prices went up. He understood,” he said, watching his cigarette burn, “I couldn’t function without it.”

The Officer pressed a crease in the map. "Do you know how many municipal cameras are in operation?"

"One for every citizen?"

"One for every act. One for every possible motive. One for every blade of grass. With enough surveillance technology, we can achieve a quantum superposition," he said, spreading both hands to flatten the city into two dimensions, "and right the paths of men before they misstep."

"We?"

"Yes. I don't believe in tyrannies. I am putting power in the hands of individuals."

"By watching everyone at once."

"And eventually even that won't be necessary. Once the initial disciplinary wave phases out, people will correct themselves. It is only after we shake out the avoidable crimes that society can flourish. I trust," he said curtly, "that you will offer every assistance." 

"And those who still don't play nice?"

The Officer remained still. "That will require... decisive action."

Holmes turned it over in his head. A planned city, starved of options, kept in check by a generic fear of the closed-circuit gaze. He tapped ashes on the rug. "How about you go for a piss," he said, eyes glittering, "and I'll tell you how hard to shake it?"

Rising, the Officer walked around the desk with two fingers trailing the edge. The light threw his riot gear into sharp relief, plastic flesh-tone musculature covering his entire body, with a nub crotch and a dimpled smile painted onto his helmet. His boots did not mark the carpet, nor did his breath steam the inside of his mask. And in this gleaming doll body he lifted Holmes from his chair and flung him to the ground.

"You will fix my machines and you will do it..." he said, his voice like steel inside the helmet, "right... _now_ , you little brat!"

His knees bracketed the detective's waist, grabbing his hair with one hand while pummeling him with the other. "What will you do when the drug dealers leave town?" he said, dropping a plated fist into soft flesh. "What will you do then, when you find your brain blue-screening every thirty seconds from detox? Where is your brilliant hacker, where is the Feynmanesque mystique, where are the lines coming off the name ‘Sherlock Holmes’?" 

The Officer stood to dust off his hands. He sneered. "You're not so mysterious."

Holmes spat out a red mouthful, static buzzing in his left ear. "Stop…okay, I yield."

“Excellent. Now how do I authorize access to the network?”

Holmes curled into a ball, and he ran his tongue over his teeth. "The software will take... some time," he said, coughing blood onto the carpet. "I have to get some things from back home-"

"Oh no," said the Officer, opening a drawer. "I think we both require a vote of confidence."

Holmes rolled onto his elbow as a pen and binder were placed on the desk. The Officer stood over him, his shadow running the length of the room. "In the time of your absence, no fewer than six department heads have received copies of the Municipal Terms and Conditions from your IP address, my office included," he said, rolling the pen on the desk. "Why?"

Holmes steadied himself against the chair, shoulders slumped. "Because you're right."

The Officer turned his head a fraction. "Am I now?"

"Yes," he said, looking away. "After some time studying your methods, I found superficial ticks in the technology that spoke of deeper flaws at the root. I had to act. I mean, this could really work, but I needed more information. And the only way for me to see the big picture... to see you..." he said, meeting his eyes, "was to crash the system."

He could swear he heard the Officer's heart thump against its shell, like a bee in a coffee can. "So you'll follow me?"

He covered the Officer's hand, the one holding the pen. "London has been static for too long," he said quietly. "We need someone to decide for us."

"But if you sign now... Your crime is great. They'll kill you for this."

"I'm not afraid to die."

Still touching the gauntlet, Holmes signed his name on the dotted line, and invited the Officer to sign as a witness. He removed the helmet, his eyes like black glass set in his handsome face. "You're a remarkable man," he said, touching the detective's cheek, "How long will it take for the system to get back online?"

"Oh that. I have a back-up program on a cell phone at home that runs in tandem with the virus, looping the packets to a non-existent IP address and thus rendering it void," said Holmes, straightening as the soldiers in the hallway grew closer. "We've been online for the last thirty minutes." 

The door sprang open, and a forest of assault rifles swarmed inside, all pointed at the Officer's head. He spun around to Holmes. "What have you done?!"

Holmes smiled, and helped himself to another cigarette as a bag was pulled over the Officer's head. Before his arrest, it had been the work of a few minutes to replace each instance of 'the signed' with 'the witness' in the city's contract. He inhaled, and watched smoke coil in the black reflection of the computer screen. 

"You didn't read the fine print."


End file.
